October 21, 2015 - Wednesday, Early Morning - Sunny
When Lydia got to school that day, she saw that Morgan was busy selling tickets to the homecoming dance. Allie and Damien had been hanging out next to her, with Nori standing by talking to them as well. She greeted them and took her place near them.
"Hey, Lydia. How are you doing?" Nori asked of her. She was wearing a black t-shirt and blue jeans along with some white flats.
"I'm good. And you?"
"I'm good!"
"Hey, Nori, so did you decide what color ribbon you wanted? I brought you the yellow pin like you wanted." Damien said, retrieving a yellow QIB pin from his pocket and handing it to her.
"Yellow is fine. And you can have my initials done in white, just like the others." She responded, accepting the pin and putting it in one of the side pockets on her backpack. Damien nodded to her, and then gestured to Allie.
"Okay. So... Nori Sanchez, N.S. Got it." She said.
"The football team is playing an away game this Friday, right?" Nori asked Lydia.
"Yeah. It's at Quartz East." She responded.
"I see. Have you liked being on our dance team?" Nori asked.
"It's been pretty good, for the most part. There's some drama sometimes, but thankfully it doesn't really have anything to do with me. I mostly just keep my head down around stuff like that." Lydia said. She wondered how things would've turned out if neither Carla nor Dawn were on the team. It was likely somebody similar would've been in their place, but yet she couldn't imagine there being a rivalry quite as bitter as theirs.
"That's good. I prefer to keep my drama on the stage. Everyone enjoys it a lot more that way." Nori said.
"I think I heard the theater club is working on something right now, right? What is it?" Lydia asked.
"It's Hamlet. I'm playing the role of Gertrude, Hamlet's mother." She responded.
"Shakespeare, huh? It's interesting stuff, but man is it hard to understand. There's a reason they have university professors specializing in that stuff." Damien remarked.
"Yeah, I didn't really like it too much 'cause of that. At least we got to watch a movie of it once we'd actually finished reading the whole thing. Uh, for me it was Merchant of Venice." Nathan said.
"I think my freshman year we read... Romeo and Juliet? And then later this year I think we're supposed to be doing Macbeth." Jacob added.
"I see. In my English classes, we've been doing Hamlet." Lydia said.
"Yeah. It's always the same four plays in order, one per year. I dunno if they're ever going to change one of them out or whatever, but here at this school you get a heaping help of the Bard every year." Damien explained.
"It's challenging, but once you understand it, you can really get into it. At least, that's what I've felt from rehearsing my lines for it and doing rehearsals with the rest of the group." Nori said. No one had brought it up, but aside from Nori, Lydia knew that every other QIB member that was here was aware that her main Persona was named after the Ophelia from the play Nori was performing in. Although her having black hair and blue eyes made her different from the typical portrayal of the Ophelia from the play, that she wore a flowing white gown and used water as her main element made it almost certain that she was supposed to be based on her.
"Sooooo... have you all bought your tickets to the dance yet?" Morgan asked, having finished dealing with the people that had come to buy tickets from her. Everyone looked at each other, seeing if anybody would say yes. When no one did, Morgan crossed her arms and giggled a bit.
"Wow, no one at all, huh? Well, we are selling tickets at the door, but they'll be more expensive then and you won't get the couples' discount!" She said, pointing to the piece of paper that listed the ticket prices.
"I don't think I'm going to get that discount." Jacob said, sighing. Before anyone else could say anything, he held up a hand to stop them.
"Please don't worry about me. I'll be okay. It's just going to... take some time before I stop sighing about it." He continued.
"I'm sorry about your breakup. I'm sure you'll find someone who's better for you." Nori said. Jacob nodded.
"Yeah. I've been hearing that a lot. Thanks for being concerned about me, though. I know we've just barely met." He responded.
"So when are you guys gonna be performing the play? I'm guessing it's like, sometime in November?" Damien asked.
"Yes. We have three performances, from November 10th to the 12th. Each one starts at 7:30. I believe the performance on the 11th is also a dinner theatre, which means you'll be served dinner before the play starts and get to eat it while watching." Nori answered.
"Cool. You might make it actually entertaining, then. Just reading this stuff out loud in class is pretty boring, and our teacher isn't showing us a movie because of the play, I guess to entice us to go see it." Damien said.
"Uh, it's actually free for students. The dinner theatre thing will still cost whatever the dinner costs, though, if you want to eat what they're serving. You don't gotta eat if you want to go to it that night." Nathan explained to Lydia.
"Maybe we can all get together to go see it. I think it'd be a lot better that way." Allie offered.
"If you guys want to do that, I'll go too. Just let me know when you're going to do it." Morgan said.
"I've already got my family coming to see it on the opening night. With you all, that would make it at least ten people coming just to see me there..." Nori said, feeling a little overwhelmed by the prospect. She brought her hands up to her face, covering up to her nose. Lydia thought the gesture was cute and said,
"I guess that makes you a bit of a star, huh?"
Nori dropped her hands from her face and folded them together in front of her, trying to think of something to say in response.
"Um... thank you. I-I'm sorry, I just didn't quite expect you to... I mean, the rest of you... I guess I'm still surprised that you consider me your friend already. After what happened... well, I didn't know what was going to happen afterwards." She nervously smoothed out her fluffy, wavy brown hair with her hands as she spoke.
"Hey, if we could've taken you to FantasyFlare, we would have. But next time something like that comes up, you are definitely coming with us." Damien said.
"I'll remember that for later." Nori replied.
The group talked amongst themselves until the warning bell rang, at which point they all began to split up. Nori hung back a moment to speak to Lydia.
"Lydia, there's something I have to ask you before I go."
"What is it?"
"F.Z. is all alone in the valley most of the time, right? Do you all go to see her regularly?" She asked.
"Whenever we go to train, yes. That's normally once a week for us. Sometimes I go in there by myself to talk to her, too. As far as I know, I'm the only one that does that. Damien and F.Z. don't get along too well, and she's not really that close to the others either. She seems to be pretty selective about who she opens up to." Lydia replied. She wondered if it was strange at all that besides her, no one went to speak to F.Z. outside of training.
"I see. Do you think she would talk to me?"
"Well, she did help you overcome your Idol. She hadn't helped out in that way before, so... yes, I think she'd talk to you. All you need to do is go into the valley and call for her, and she'll come." Lydia said. Nori nodded, and felt for her mirror in her back pocket.
"Okay. I'll remember that. Thanks."
"Oh, and one more thing." Lydia began, noticing Nori reaching for her mirror.
"You can't use your mirror to go in. It has to be a normal one. I'm guessing it's because we take ours with us inside the valley, and the mirror needs to be stationed here in the real world for it to act as a portal."
"Oh, okay. So any normal mirror works?"
"It should. It's best if you use a large one, though. Do you have one in your bedroom?"
"Yes, but I share it with one of my sisters. I haven't gotten around to telling my siblings about QIB yet." Nori said, folding her hands together again.
"You already know how I've dealt with that. It's up to you if you think they can keep it a secret. But I only have one younger sibling. You have three, all of which are even younger. I have a feeling we won't be able to keep it a secret forever, but I'm hoping we can keep it that way for as long as we can." Lydia said. Nori nodded, closing her eyes as she took it in.
"Mm-hmm. Well... I'll figure something out. I have to go. See you later." She said, walking away from Lydia.
Wednesday, Evening - Cloudy
Lydia was in the middle of doing her homework when her phone vibrated, signaling an incoming text message from someone. She had been focused for a straight hour trying to work and was now on the last of the math problems, a few problems short of finishing them when the text came in.
Almost perfect timing. Almost. Wonder who it is.
"Hello. Lydia?" The message was from Nori. As much as Lydia wanted to chat with her about stuff, the math homework was due tomorrow and she didn't want to have to hurry and finish it in the morning.
"Hey. Doing HW right now. Almost done. Give me 5 minutes."
"Oh, okay. Sorry."
Once she had finished her homework, Lydia grabbed her phone and laid on her bed, closing the curtain since the light from the streetlamp was bothering her.
"Done now. What's up?" While she was waiting for Nori to respond, she found her earbuds and started to listen to some music from her phone.
"I went to see FZ today after school. She was surprised to see me. According to her, you really are the only other one that had come alone until I did." There was something about that sentence that made Lydia sigh, despite her understanding of why that was.
"I see. What did you two talk about? Was she hard to talk to?"
"No, hardly. But omg, I've never heard someone Desiree's age curse like she does. If she" The message ended abruptly, leading Lydia to believe Nori accidentally pressed Send too soon on her phone.
"Sorry. Hit send on accident." Nori texted before continuing on.
"If she ever met her and my parents found out, they would definitely not be ok with them being friends. I asked FZ why she curses so much. You want to know what her answer was?"
"I bet it was something you couldn't say out loud in your house." Lydia answered, imagining F.Z. coming up with an extra spicy answer to that question just because she could.
"No kidding! This was her answer.
'Well, since you fucking asked, let me fucking tell you. It doesn't bother me to say what I damn well please around people. I'm not very good at holding back, and I think you saw that with that Idol shit. And don't think I do it just to piss people off. That's just a bonus.'
I don't know what's more shocking, that she talks that way or that it sounds so natural coming from her!" Nori texted.
"She is right about one thing: she doesn't do it simply to get a rise out of people. I mean, even someone like me who doesn't really play video games knows about the stereotypical 12-year-old boy who curses up a storm online to try and sound... what did Damien call it? Edgy? But yeah, even with what I know about her I'm still curious as to why she does it." Lydia replied. She then remembered something and texted again.
"Oh. I don't know if we told you, but FZ is supposed to be 15 now. She died before starting her freshman year in high school. She assumes her birthday's passed by now, so that's where she got 15 from."
"15? Honestly, that doesn't change much about it. She still looks so young to me."
"She hasn't aged at all since her death. That might be why."
"Maybe. Oh, but I still haven't told you what we actually talked about. She wasn't willing to tell me much about herself, so it was mostly talking about me. What I do, the kind of person I am, how I feel about being dragged into all this against my will. She's still surprised that QIB has so easily accepted it." Nori texted. That got Lydia thinking.
What would we have done if someone had said no? If someone had refused their Idol, obtained their Persona, but declined to join us? What if we had gotten someone who wanted to just forget it all happened? We wouldn't have forced them to help, but... our Personas can still talk to us even in the real world. Would they be nudging that person to do something, or not?
"It's... I wonder about that too. FZ told me that a few people were taken into the valley after she was, but before Allie. We don't know what happened to them. They're not part of Sycophanta. But everyone we've met that's been to the valley and lived to tell the tale has a Persona now, whether they're good or bad. What about those people we've never met? How are they doing?"
There was a period of several minutes of silence where neither girl said anything. Lydia reached for a pack of gum she kept nearby, retrieved a stick, and started chewing it. She thought about taking it to school, but if it was anything like Crystal Rapids, a full 24 pack of gum would be half expended by lunch and completely gone by the end of the day. She could buy as much gum as she wanted thanks to her new source of income, but just the thought of being the one everybody bugged for gum was bothersome enough to make her decide it wasn't worth it.
"Maybe it's fate. I don't know. You all have said that the valley seems to be getting stronger, smarter. Maybe at first it took just anybody. Then it started only taking people that could be swayed to join it. That might explain why everyone since Allie has either been on our side or theirs." Nori finally responded.
"That might be exactly it. It would explain why we know exactly what happened to everyone that's come here since then. But despite all we've been able to figure out, we still don't have a solution for stopping it for good."
"We just have to trust something will show itself. It has to have a weakness, right?" Nori texted.
"Yeah. I try not to worry so much about it. You shouldn't either. Remember, we still have our normal lives to live. We're all better off if we live as best as we can without letting that weigh on us so much." Lydia responded, suddenly feeling Nathan's words about her being the leader of the group come back to her.
"But I mean, you're like this kickass Persona-user, right? I just thought since you were the leader of QIB and all.." That's what he said. He called me the leader. That's what everyone sees me as, the leader. And well... that's exactly what I'm doing right now, huh? Being a leader?
"Yes. I agree. Thank you for the reminder. And also, please don't hesitate to call on me whenever you need something. You all helped me when I needed it most. It's only fair that I offer my help in return."
"Of course. I'll remember that."
"Let's talk about something else then. Remember when Morgan asked us this morning if anyone had bought their tickets to the dance and no one said anything? That was awkward!"
The two girls continued to text each other for a while. Nori told Lydia that she had already found a date last week: a guy from her theater group, the one playing Polonius in the play. His name was Derek, and he was someone that she'd been friends with for years. Lydia told her about her situation, and Nori told her that there was nothing wrong with going with friends and not having a date, that people get too fussy over having a date that a lot of them don't even seem to enjoy it even when they do get one.
Lydia still wanted to have a date despite Nori's words. She told her as much, and this was the response she received:
"Okay. That's just how you feel, then. I hope you find someone good and that you have a great time with him."
They then moved on to other topics, like what they did in their off time when they weren't at school or doing extracurriculars. As might be expected from someone with a reasonably large family, Nori was often busy doing things with her siblings. The age gap between her and them meant that she had to look to her friends at school if she wanted to talk about things that were more relevant to her, so she convinced her parents to let her attend Fulton despite Quartz East being the closer and more convenient school.
"I figured a new school would be a lot more exciting than one that's been there for decades. Of course, I can't say for sure that it is, but I like to think so." Nori texted regarding it.
They then went to the topic of Lydia's move from across the state. Nori remarked that the distance would've been the same as moving from Louisiana to Florida, and Lydia responded that she didn't know just how much nothing there was to see in Texas until she saw the hundreds of miles of it for herself. After explaining why the move was necessary, Nori asked Lydia this question:
"If you could live anywhere you wanted, where would you choose to live?"
Lydia got to thinking about this question, and was mulling over how much Houston really appealed to her before Nori answered the question herself.
"As for me, I don't have any place in particular in mind, but I think I'd like to live in a suburb where it snows. Not several feet of it, but enough to consistently have a white Christmas."
It kinda snowed in Crystal Rapids. It wasn't anything you could do much with, though. It'd be all gone by noon most of the time. It's so much hotter over here, so I seriously doubt it would snow at all. But to consider her question... if I could live anywhere I wanted?
"I think Houston. I would never be bored there." Lydia texted. As she waited for Nori's response, her mind wandered off into considering questions that crept up from the back of her mind.
Would I ever want to go back to a place like that? It was where I spent most of my years growing up. I have a lot of happy memories from there. But... the worst things that've ever happened to me happened there, too. Can I ever look at it the same after being to a place like Houston for real? Where exactly do I belong?
"Oh, that's for sure. I can see why too. There must not have been that much to do back where you came from."
"More than you think, but yes. You're right." Lydia responded, hardly thinking about what she had just sent.
"Desiree is starting to ask about you. I kinda wish I could just sneak off into the valley so we could talk in person and not have to worry about time passing as quickly. You said it passes faster inside, right?" Nori texted.
"Yeah." Lydia responded, still mulling over her thoughts from before. An idea popped up in her mind and suddenly swept her previous thoughts away, and she quickly typed out another message.
"We should totally do that sometime. I can't believe we never thought of that until now, going in there just to talk to each other and have more time to do it."
"You also said electronics don't work. We could talk, but that's it." Nori responded.
"Oh. Good point. But still, we have to do that at least once. Just you and me. I'm sure FZ won't mind." Lydia hadn't asked which Arcana Nori's Persona represented, and Jacob hadn't had the opportunity to scan her either. Every other Persona-user on QIB had a Social Link with her, and now that she was familiar with how it worked, she figured that she could get one to appear if she met with her in the valley.
Then again, Damien's Link appeared to me while I was on the phone with him. Would it work through text messaging? I guess if I see another card, I'll know.
"Maybe tomorrow. Desiree is going over to a friend's house and I'll have the room to myself then."
"Sounds good. Let me know when you're ready."
"Ok."
After their conversation was over and Lydia settled down to go to sleep, she turned off the bedroom light and made her way to her bed, the room filled with darkness except for the persistent blue glow of the Velvet Room door. There was something comforting about having that glow in the darkness, especially since she was the only one that could see it. It made the room feel like it was a gateway to a different existence, a place right out of a storybook.
It's like that panel at the convention said. This is still my room. My ordinary, everyday bedroom. But there's always that otherworldly thing there, reminding me that my life is more than just ordinary. I wonder what things would've been like if it wasn't so accommodating to my everyday life, if the Velvet Room was instead some kind of headquarters where I'd have to live training every day to use my Personas. What kind of life would that have been?
She laid down and covered herself with the sheets. She reached for Junebug, and mused that this alternate universe Velvet Room may or may not have let her bring him with her to its hypothetical personal chambers.
I think they would've let me bring at least a couple of personal items. But if the Velvet Room was like that, would it have also been just me and the permanent residents? That makes it sound like I'm training with a kung fu master at a secret dojo, like I was the only one chosen to take up the art from a master. Now that's something. What if I didn't have the wild card, or if other people did? This'll keep me up all night if I think about it too much.
She put Junebug back in his original place sitting next to her and rolled over to face him. She couldn't really see his face in the darkness, but she knew he was still there, his smile remaining as stalwart as ever.
Not that you ever needed to think too hard. You're always looking up, aren't you? I wish everything could be that simple.
Original upload date: July 4, 2017
A/N: Guess what I got into since my last update. Don't want to guess? That's fine. I'll tell you. I started playing Final Fantasy XIV, which if you didn't know, is an MMO. I picked it up a couple of months ago and now have the White Mage job at level 70. Would you like to know what server I'm on and what my character's name is? You'll have to PM me.
But anyways. Let's get back to more relevant stuff.
JoseiHero-XXII: Wow, someone actually mentioned Trinity Soul. I haven't seen that myself, but based on what I've read about it, there's a reason practically no one knows or talks about it. I'd be surprised if I was the first person to have an OC-centric fic with a female protagonist; surely there must be at least one other, no? Either way, thanks for the review.
RosyMiranto18: Thanks for the compliment. And regarding your speculation... well, 45AF was a joke chapter. I don't think that you could take what happens in it to be indicative of anything that might happen in the canon chapters. And F.Z. facing her Idol again. Now how would that happen, I wonder? Certainly an interesting thing to think about.
Blue VanLocke: I do try my best to have the setting conform to reality where necessary. As it turns out though, there are indeed quite the variety of butterflies to be found in Texas, some of which are white in color. I prefer to think of the one Lydia saw as an especially luminous variant of Ascia monuste, if you would like an exact reference. Thanks for the review!
